


I Met My Boyfriend In A Haunted House

by negickapologist (neganstonguething)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Ghosts, M/M, Paranormal, Some mature themes, abuse mention, but mostly rated because of negan's mouth, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 21:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11586129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neganstonguething/pseuds/negickapologist
Summary: Negan hates ghosts, and Rick hunts them. The ship practically sails itself.My contribution to day 2 of Regan Week - AU.





	I Met My Boyfriend In A Haunted House

**Author's Note:**

> This one was more shameless plugging of my interest in all things paranormal than anything. But it was fun to write, albeit a little fast paced. Hope you all enjoy! Happy Regan Week!

Living in a haunted house really isn’t so bad.

If, y’know, you’re into that kind of thing.

Which Negan most definitely isn’t. In fact, he fucking hates ghosts. Is that something you’re allowed to say? In Negan’s book, he sure feels like it is. After all, his place is goddamn fucking _haunted_ , and if a guy isn’t allowed to hate whatever untouchable force is giving him hell right now, just fuck him up. Seriously.

He used to think he was imagining things. Despite Negan’s acquired hatred for ghosts, he’s watched plenty of episodes of _Ghost Hunters_ and _A Haunting_ and _The Haunted_ to know how the story goes: A dumbass guy moves into a new place, falls in love with said place, gets a few months to _enjoy_ the place, and then shit starts happening. The resident dumbass brushes shit off as the wind or creaky boards or water moving through pipes, until a demonic face or voice or succubus attack finally makes him realize that, oh fuck, he’s got a ghost!

The story is never like _Casper_. It always gets really bad, because the entity there is still under the impression that they’ve got an intruder. Or maybe the dumbass in question just happens to be a _sensitive_ dumbass who has unknowingly gone and gotten himself a ghostly stalker who wants to feed on him.

Either way, Negan was the embodiment of this trend up until recently. He wouldn’t say he’d fallen in _love_ with his place, but he did quite like it. He also got his few months of sweet solace before weird shit started happening. Negan would close doors, wake up after going to sleep, and find them open. Pictures on his wall would turn upside-down. He’d hear footsteps and knocking, and it wasn’t until the night he woke up to a loud crash and found all his plates shattered on the kitchen floor that he realized, hey, this probably wasn’t his imagination!

And now, he simply hates ghosts. The stupid, invasive little fucks who saw fit to destroy like forty fucking dollars worth in plates, and who keep opening his goddamn doors and messing with all the photos Lucille loved so much that Negan can’t bring himself to part with.

In a display of dark humor, Negan briefly amuses himself with the curiosity that maybe his ghostly new roommate is actually the ghost of his late wife. Lucille had always been a feisty little thing with enough attitude to fuel an entire episode of _Big Brother_ , so it really would be no surprise if she’s still lurking around, giving Negan shit. He had never been a very good husband, after all, so he probably deserves the grief.

But the idea of actually believing that theory is downright laughable to Negan. The thing is, he’d spent literally _years_ struggling to get over her death. The selling of their house and the purchasing of a new one had been a sort of final step toward that effort. Not only is it hard for him to fathom that the late wife he had been trying so hard to cope with the loss of is suddenly back in his life and fucking untouchable, but even though Negan knows he was a shitty spouse, it’s still a little frustrating to imagine that the spirit of his wife would choose to wait _years_ to show up and start haunting him.

Lucille wouldn’t have waited. She would have wasted approximately zero time in tormenting her sad excuse for a husband if given the chance.

So, with that ruled out, Negan is now just under the impression that the new house he just emptied too much money into purchasing has been vacant for a goddamn reason.

Not lucky for his invisible asshat of a roommate, Negan isn’t just going to throw his hands up into the air and give the house back. No, he’s gonna stay here and fucking _love_ this place, ghosts and spirits and poltergeists be damned. It’s _Negan’s_ house, now.

At first, Negan tries to deal with the issue, himself. By that, he means he tries to ignore the presence giving him problems. Like so many characters in all those ghost shows, Negan figures that maybe if he doesn’t acknowledge the spirit, it’ll give in and leave him alone. Seems simple enough, right?

Wrong.

Ghosts are apparently just overgrown toddlers that don’t know when to quit, because this little fucker _still_ refuses to give up.

It happens in the middle of the night. Negan wakes up with a wicked headache and shuffles into the bathroom to pop some Excedrin. He realizes there isn’t a cup in the bathroom, so he swallows the pills around a palmful of sink water, and then stops to wash his face in hopes that the cool dousing might help to alleviate some of the pain. When he looks up into the mirror, he notices that his nose is bleeding. But when he brings a hand up to wipe the blood away, it just keeps coming.

It's odd, how none of the red liquid shows in the runoff in the sink, and Negan takes mild notice of it, but before he can react too vividly, the lightbulb above the mirror goes out with a ‘pop!’

Negan is suddenly encapsulated in total blackness, and for no apparent reason. He curses himself for not having just taken the pills and gone back to bed, and as he’s fumbling around to find the doorway, the light buzzes back on.

Negan is facing the shower when light floods the bathroom once more, and he is effectively frozen to the spot, because he’s quite honestly too fucking scared to move. The shower curtain is bowed inward somewhat, seemingly vacuumed around some sort of humanoid form. Actually, the form is _unmistakably_ human. Negan can almost see the thing breathing, which makes him even more uncomfortable. He’s starting to feel sick to his stomach, and he can sense the chill of color draining rom his complexion.

But just as quickly as it happened, it’s gone. Right before Negan’s eyes, the curtain swishes back to its standard shape, and the pain in his head subsides with it.

The dread that swirled around him, however, does not fade.

The very next day, Negan does something he’d never thought he would ever do—he looks up a local paranormal team and gives them a call. Even as he speaks to the cheery woman on the phone, he doesn’t know what to expect. Hell, Negan isn’t sure he’d know what to expect if it was fucking TAPS he called.

Either way, a house visit is scheduled, and after two long days waiting, the visit finally happens. Negan answers the door, greeting the faces of four people. Negan almost instantly recognizes the voice of the friendly person who had taken the call in the big smile on a small, blue-eyed blonde. It’s like he just _knows_ this girl is the one with the happy voice. Next to her is a brunette with darker eyes and an intense, protective stare. Behind this one is a scruffy-looking man with a mullet and a suitcase in each hand.

And next to that one is the single most beautiful man Negan has ever laid eyes on. He’s about six inches shorter than Negan himself, with a lean, toned form, dark brown curls, and the most hypnotic pale blue stare. He sports ripped jeans and a worn gray button-up as well as a placid, curious expression.

“Negan,” the little blonde starts, “right? I’m Beth.” She extends a hand, which Negan accepts and shakes. Afterward, she motions to the girl next to her, and then the mullet guy behind her, and finally, the blue-eyed man in the back. “This is Maggie, and Eugene, and Rick.”

Negan greets them all in their respective order, and then steps out of the way to allow them inside. He resists the urge to look Blue Eyes McSexy up and down as the man passes by, instead focusing on closing the door once everyone is inside.

“It’s er, nice to fucking meet you.” Negan manages awkwardly. Funny, how all the shit he’s ever seen on TV disappears from his mind when he’s looking at a real-life iteration of them. “So, what do we do next?”

The aforementioned Rick nods to Negan, and then to Beth and Maggie. “We’ll let them get a feel for the place, and then we’ll set up equipment and see if we can confirm you’ve got somethin’ here.”

Negan frowns. “Oh, I can promise you I’ve got something. Anyway, do I just…fucking let ‘em walk around?”

“Basically.” McSexy responds. “Beth and Maggie are mediums, and they have an…interesting way of doin’ things.”

Negan nods at the two girls, giving them the green light to go about the house and do their thing. Afterward, his focus returns to Rick. Which isn’t really hard to do. The man is…so fucking easy on the eyes.

“What makes their methods interesting?” Negan questions. “Because if they have to lick all my shit, I’m gonna have to stop that before it fucking starts.”

“You’ve taken a real fancy to the ‘f’ word, I’m seein’.” Eugene pipes up, and Negan just shrugs. “Rest assured, their intentions are not of the salivatory sort. Their minds are connected in a way that makes their skill set in the paranormal field nothin’ short of fubar level. One can take in an entire view from the Spirit World, and the other can’t see it, but senses it through her sister and interprets it for us.”

Spirit World? Mediums? _Fubar?_ What the fuck is Negan getting himself into? Even though he’d just days ago had the literal shit scared out of him by a shower curtain, he still finds himself questioning this whole thing.

Despite that, he lets the girls start their exploration of his house. At least he has a little time to spend with the group’s resident pretty boy while he waits. That in mind, he sidles over to Rick, a somewhat curious smile on his lips.

“So,” he starts, hands tucked into his pockets, “the girls are the ghost sniffers, Mullet over there’s gotta be your tech guy, seeing as he’s elbow-fucking-deep in his fourth heavy plastic suitcase, which just leaves you. Are you just their supervisor or some shit?”

Much like everything else about him, Rick has one hell of a nice smile. He’s flashing pearly white teeth, his eyes almost aglow with warmth, as he speaks. “I wouldn’t say that. We’re more a team than a business. Guess you could call me the captain of that team, since I try to keep it all together. But they do the hard stuff. I’m really just along for the ride.”

“I can get behind that.” Negan answers. “I take it you’re one of those brave fuckers who lives for seeing all the spooky shit that goes bump in the night? Hell, if I didn’t live with one of those assholes, I’d probably be trying to see one for myself, too.”

“You definitely got a part of it right.” Rick laughs. Negan sees their eyes meet and his skin prickles at the sheer electricity in their uniting stares. “I live for this. You never know what you’re gonna see when someone tells you they think their house is haunted.” He closes his eyes, presumably in thought. “But you’re wrong when you say I haven’t experienced anything personally.”

“I meant outside of your job.” Negan laughs.

“So did I.” Rick replies.

Just then, Eugene approaches and moves to stand before Negan. He motions behind himself with his thumb to all the equipment he’s carried in. “We’re gonna hook this stuff up to see effectively every nook and cranny of your home. Not to worry, because we’ve got plenty of experience in the not-a-stone-left-unturned business. But if you’ve got a particularly bumpy or creaky place you want us to pay special attention to, you should tell me now.”

Negan doesn’t hesitate, even if he was a little confused at first. “Uh, the bathroom and kitchen for goddamn sure. Everything else has been pretty vague.”

“Ay-ffirmative.” Eugene responds, before resuming the task of unpacking his equipment. As he gets to work, Rick speaks up again.

“Beth kind of explained what you told her to me, but I like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” He shrugs.” So, can you tell me why the kitchen and bathroom are hotspots to you?”

At this point, Negan already knows they’re either going to believe him or they aren’t, so he has no issue telling his story as many times as he needs to. So, he opens up about the broken plates and the strange shower curtain figure, going into as much detail as he can imagine, all the way to the nosebleed that he’d only been able to see in the mirror.

He likes that Rick listens without question, his eyes bearing an open-mindedness Negan imagines comes from plenty of experience hearing the strangest of stories from people who have probably been through way worse.

When he finishes, Negan watches Rick become thoughtful, his eyebrows scrunched and arms crossed over his chest. After a few seconds of reminding Negan of The Thinker, Rick finally returns his blue gaze to Negan.

“I can’t be for sure until later,” he starts, “but if this stuff really is happenin’, I don’t think it’s anything malicious. Sucks you lost your dishes, though.”

“Trust me,” Negan scoffs, “if I could, I’d be making that fucker reimburse me for that shit. I actually _liked_ some of those plates.” He turns a half-serious glance toward Rick. “This shit is one-hundred percent real, by the way.”

“I believe you.” Rick smiles reassuringly. It works. Negan immediately feels warmer by receiving the response. “The way you describe it, it seems pretty damn real. It’s just easier to go into stuff like this without assumin’ it’s supernatural outright. We rule out things like creaky pipes and faulty electricity before we let ourselves believe it’s a ghost. Keeps us from overreactin’ to things that may not actually be happenin’.”

“Makes sense.” Negan nods. “But what about Tweedle Sensitive and Tweedle Psychic? If you ask me, they seem pretty fucking sure they’re looking or a ghost.”

“They are.” Rick agrees. “But for those of us without their gift, we have to be realistic first.”

Negan finds he has no issue working with Rick and his crew. Beth and Maggie don’t mention whatever their findings are, which Rick explains is the same reason they debunk the situation before assuming it’s paranormal. Apparently, they all stay silent until either something glaringly obvious happens or their night is over, which is when they all come together with their discoveries. Negan thinks all of that makes sense.

He spends most of his time staying out of the way while Eugene installs all the expensive shit, and sticking by Rick’s side to set up everything it’ll take to pull an all-nighter. Negan drives with Rick to the grocery store, where they gather up finger foods and drinks to last the night.

He finds he _really_ likes talking to Rick.

And flirting with him.

Especially since Rick seems to enjoy flirting back.

 _Seems_ , because Negan hasn’t outright asked and gotten verbal confirmation, yet. But the vibes right now sure do feel awfully flirtatious. In the store, Negan makes vulgar jokes about the different fruit in the produce section, and Rick shoves him and tells him how immature he is. Negan just laughs it off and tells Rick he should be glad they’re not buying hot dogs.

When they get back, Negan whips up a cheeseburger dip to go with the tortilla chips they bought, and Rick practically melts over how delicious it smells. He tells Negan he’s a man after his heart, and when Negan licks his lips and glances into those baby blues again, he sees an intense, curious stare right back into his own. To avoid jumping the gun and making a move on this guy just an hour into knowing him, he instead offers Rick a quick taste test of the dip. The moan Rick lets out upon doing so doesn’t really help matters.

Negan directs Rick on a tour of the house after that. Each of the rooms are now heavily equipped with cords and wires and everything from video cameras to tape recorders. Negan trips on the way into his room, and Rick catches him by his upper right arm and tugs him back upright. Negan cocks an eyebrow, clearly amazed. After all, he’s not a small man.

“For the guy who doesn’t do much lifting,” Negan quips, smiling widely, “you sure are fucking strong!”

Rick chuckles. “Yeah, well, this isn’t my day job.”

“Yeah?” Negan asks, quirking his eyebrow back up again.

“Yep.” Rick nods. “This is for fun. I’m a deputy sheriff most other days.”

“Damn.” Negan whistles, impressed. “I thought there was a reason I liked you.”

“You sure it wasn’t my looks, like the fifty times you’ve told me today?” Rick teases.

“Oh, don’t fucking get me wrong.” Negan retorts. “That’s also a part of it. If not for those rippling arm muscles, I’d think you were like an eye or hair model or some shit.”

“Welp,” Rick says with a laugh, “fooled you, then.”

Silence falls over the room then, wherein Negan and Rick’s eyes meet once more and they both find it difficult to look away. Negan’s once more hit with that urge to sweep in and act on his budding attraction to the man, but the sheer sensation of being mesmerized by him helps to keep his feet rooted to the ground. For now, he just revels in the fluttering in his stomach and boiling sensation in his chest. It feels nice to be interested in someone again, and not just because he wants to bang them.

Rick eventually turns his attention away and toward the dresser behind Negan. Atop it are two photos and a set of discarded wedding rings, as well as a crumpled obituary and funeral paper. In the photos are Negan and Lucille. One is their wedding photo, and another is a selfie Lucille took of herself and Negan. Negan sports a massive welt square in the middle of his forehead, which he recalls is from a ping pong ball Lucille had sent springing up and clocked him in the forehead with before. Despite it, they’re both grinning widely at the camera.

Negan doesn’t stop Rick from passing him to get a closer look at the items. He’s got no reason to keep any of it a secret.

“Your wife?” Rick asks as he scans the pictures.

“Late wife.” Negan corrects calmly. “She died five years ago. Cancer.” A year ago, this discussion would have been cut off before it had started, but Negan can proudly proclaim that he’s come a long way since then.

“She was pretty.” Rick observes. “Looks like she had a gleam in her eye, too. Like a fire.”

“You’re damn fucking right.” Negan smirks. “She was a fiery little vixen. Sexy as hell, as a result. She’d blow your mind both in and out of the bedroom.”

Rick chuckles. “I bet she’s why you have a bump on your head in this picture.” He points to the second one.

“Yep.” Negan replies, barking out a laugh. “I kick ass at ping pong—was doing just that one day, and we were shit-talking while we were playing. Out of the blue, she got pissed off and swung too hard. Fucking beaned me right in the forehead.”

“I like her.” Rick concludes. He reaches up to adjust one of the photos and Negan catches sight of a gleam on his left hand.

Negan snorts. “But hey, what about you? Here I’ve been, flirting with your pretty ass all day, and I just now notice the wedding ring on your finger.”

Rick just smiles a sad smile that Negan isn’t quite sure how to respond to. “I don’t have the heart to take it off. My wife died two years ago, in childbirth.”

Whoa…two years?

Damn…

“Shit, Rick…I’m sorry.”

Rick shakes his head. “Don’t be. Life goes on, Negan. Lori would be furious if I got all messed up on her death and forgot to care for our kids.”

Negan sighs and smiles. “How many do you have?”

“Two.” Rick answers. “One’s thirteen and the other’s two.” He withdraws his wallet, holding up a picture of the two siblings together. A boy, the eldest, has wavy hair like his father and the same piercing stare. He sports a big smile as he holds his baby sister on his hip. The sister has big blue eyes and curly blonde hair. Her chubby fingers are furled around a ragged-looking doll, and her gaze seems fixed on the face of the doll.

But they’re beautiful. Negan strangely feels connected to them, and when he looks up to meet Rick’s eyes again, that sense of connection grows stronger. He feels nervous, and when Rick sees that anxiety on his face, he seems to mirror it.

“Your kids are adorable, Rick.” Negan finally says. “A fucking good-ass reason to get on your feet. As a guy who spent four years trying to get over his wife’s death, I gotta say I’m proud as hell of you for it.”

Rick pauses, and then turns his gaze to the carpet. He looks pensive, before he clears his throat and turns his gaze up to Negan again. “…Judgin’ by the fact that you don’t have a room for them here, I’m guessin’ you don’t have kids?”

Negan shakes his head. “We tried for a while. Guess I just don’t have good enough spunk or something.”

It takes Rick a second to get what Negan means, but when the realization hits him, it shows plainly on his face. Negan shakes his head before the man can respond apologetically or otherwise.

“It’s no big deal. We crossed that bridge a long-ass time ago. Way before she died.” He doesn’t want to make Rick uncomfortable by pointing out that he always has and still does want a kid, though, so he keeps that little afterthought to himself.

Rick seems to appreciate it, too, and much like Negan, he looks ready for a subject change. This comes in the form of a sly smirk that goes all too well with that perfect set of blue eyes.

“So you’ve been flirtin’ with me, huh?”

“I’m pretty fucking sure I’ve made that obvious, Blue Eyes.” Negan says back. “And maybe I’m assuming here, but I’ve kind of been under the impression that you’ve been flirting back.”

“Maybe.” Rick shrugs, before he starts out of the room. “C’mon, we still haven’t seen the rest of the place. Oh, and watch your step.”

Negan behaves for the rest of the tour. He shows Rick the main hotspots for activity around his house, as well as the garage, and then they head back to the living room, where everyone else is gathered and waiting for instruction as to the next move. Upon seeing the pair, Beth smirks knowingly. Her grin reminds Negan that cameras are up everywhere.

Not that he minds, especially if Rick is reciprocating. So he just smirks right back.

“So,” Maggie starts, her focus on Rick, “are we ready?”

“I think so.” Rick nods.

“What are we doing now?” Negan joins in.

Rick shrugs. “Just waitin’. We’ll cut the lights and sit around to see if anything happens. Come mornin’, we’ll check all our cameras and recorders for anything.”

Negan happens to see Eugene messing around at a table he’s made. Atop it are several laptops, a headset, a bunch of other equipment Negan doesn’t recognize, and one he does—an EMF reader.

“What about that?” He asks. “I know what it is, but are you guys gonna use it or does it just get to sit there and look pretty?”

Eugene raises an eyebrow. “You don’t get to play with her, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Negan quips back. “But why the fuck not? All I do is walk around with it, right?”

“Negative.” Eugene says quickly. “ _I_ just walk around with it.”

“He’s the tech guy.” Beth muses, shrugging, and Negan gets the feeling she’s been on his side of this discussion before. “His toys are for him and him alone.”

“But you can come with us!” Maggie adds. “If we go use it, you get to walk around and see what it does too.”

“So it’s actually gonna be put to use?” Negan asks. Honestly, he’s only ever seen an EMF reader through television. To see one respond in person would be fucking awesome.

Rick nods. “If somethin’ happens on the cameras or we hear somethin’, we’ll go to that room and try to get a reading.”

“Gotcha.” Negan sighs, and then flops down onto his couch. Rick joins him, while Beth and Maggie peer at the laptop screens with Eugene. They seem to be making sure everything is in order, which means their waiting game is probably about to start.

It drawls on, well into the evening and nighttime hours. They have to keep quiet, so it’s pretty boring. Negan tries a round of Speed with the sisters, and ends up getting his ass handed to him. Apparently, long and quiet nights like this are commonplace in the ghost hunting world, so they’ve all mastered basically every card game out there.

After the clock passes midnight, Beth brings board games in from their vehicle. She starts with _Sorry!_ , and after Negan steals a win at that, they manage to talk Rick and Eugene into joining for a second round. Maggie and Beth operate on a team together, with everyone else playing on their own. They win this time, and after Eugene decides it’s time to turn his focus back to the monitors, the remaining four sneak in a game of _Clue_.

They get really into that one. Amidst stuffing chips and trail mix and orange slices into their mouths, they laugh and perhaps get a little too loud. The second round in, Eugene whistles sharply for them to quiet down. When Negan accuses Professor Plum of being the murderer, with the candlestick, in the ballroom, everyone erupts in cheers and Eugene shushes them again.

So they resort to a more monotonous game—chess. Rick and Negan take white pieces, while the sisters take black. Rick lets Negan do the moves, and they confer together on which ones to make.

And that’s where Negan gets to shine. He’s coached just about every sport, and working on plays, predicting what steps the other team might take, it’s made him something of a tactical genius. Rick eventually just stops making suggestions and watches the game over Negan’s shoulder. Or rather, _on_ it.

Yeah, he’s leaning on Negan’s shoulder, and the larger man can’t bring himself to tell Rick to stop. He wonders if Rick thinks this is crazy—that they’ve known one another for a handful of hours and are already past casual flirting and to the point of physical contact. It feels like the way a one-night stand would start out, but at the same time, Negan doesn’t think this is going to be the last he sees of Rick. Besides, they aren’t fucking yet or anything. They’re just…being very open about their mutual attraction.

What kind of stuff does Rick like to do outside of this and his regular job? Is he outdoorsy? Does he like to explore? Or is he a big homebody? Negan wants to know.

So he asks. Maggie and Beth make a run for soft drinks, and Eugene is so caught up in his work that he probably wouldn’t notice their conversation unless they screamed it.

“I like growin’ stuff.” Rick admits. “The way I met Beth and Maggie is through a farmer I once knew. He spent most of his later days tellin’ me he’d have laughed in someone’s face if they’d have told him farmin’ would be his livelihood. But he knew so much, and he taught me enough before he passed that I could grow a garden if I wanted.”

“Don’t you?” Negan asks.

“Yeah.” Rick laughs breathily. “So much.”

“Why the fuck not, then?” Negan scoffs. “You got the passion for it. I say do it, man.”

“It ain’t that easy.” Rick replies. “I don’t have a lot of time to put into a garden. Carl isn’t into all that stuff either, and Judy is too young.”

Carl…Judy…must be Rick’s kids’ names. Either way, Negan can understand that.

“Well, coaching keeps me damn busy, but hey.” Negan shrugs. “This thing I feel budding between us works out, maybe I can help. I don’t know shit about gardening, but you can use the chance to pass down your old buddy’s teachings.”

Rick smiles and looks down into his lap. “Yeah. Maybe one day, Negan.”

The two spend another half hour talking, before exhaustion grips Negan and he zonks out right there on the couch. It’s been a long-ass time since he last pulled an all-nighter, and Rick doesn’t seem to be trying to stop him.

He does, however, wake him hours later. Negan doesn’t know what time it is, but he does notice that all the lights are out and the greenish glow of the nightvision cameras on the laptops are the only thing giving them any visible periphery. He powers through the bleary state of waking up, and then notices that Rick is hovering over him, shaking his shoulder.

“…Wha…Whassamatter…?” Negan groans, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

“We might have somethin’.” Rick says urgently. “C’mon.”

The first thing he sees is that Eugene and the girls aren’t in the living room. They’ve disappeared into the pitch darkness surrounding them in the rest of the house. Rick takes his hand.

“They’re in the kitchen.” Rick whispers. “I’ll lead the way.”

Negan wants to ask how they’re supposed to see anything happen with the rooms this dark, but he’s reluctant to make a sound. Not that anything he’s said or done in the past has ever scared his ghostly friend away, but still.

His eyes acclimate to the dark during the walk, though, and even if it isn’t much, Negan finds he can probably see enough to let go of Rick’s hand. But he doesn’t. Shamelessly, he doesn’t.

In the kitchen, Eugene’s outline can be seen standing in the very center. He’s got his EMF reader clasped in both hands, and the fucking thing is going _haywire_. Bright green and red and yellow lights bounce back and forth all over the reader.

“If anything’s here,” Eugene whispers, “it’s with us now. EMF could be pickin’ up pipes or electricity, too.”

Negan shoots him a glare even though he knows the man can’t see it. “Pipes don’t break my dishes.”

“Just rulin’ out possibilities.” Eugene responds. “The mind can play tricks on a person somethin’ unmerciful.”

“Can the mind take forty dollars worth in plates and crash them?” Negan snaps.

“If you’re sleepwalkin’, maybe.” Eugene says back. “Look, I’m not sayin’ that your story isn’t one hundred percent solid—it was just a thought process I had to make.”

Rick squeezes Negan’s hand, and Negan knows he’s silently asking him to leave the argument at that. Mostly because he wants to see whatever’s here prove Eugene wrong, he complies.

And then nothing happens. The reader reaches a normal state and after nearly a minute waiting in silence, Eugene sighs.

“Anything, girls?” Rick faces Maggie and Beth, both of whom shake their heads.

“Nothin’.” Maggie answers. “There _was_ somethin’, though. It went as quickly as it came.”

“Damn.” Rick curses. “Alright, maybe we’ll find somethin’ on the tapes tomorrow. Back to the living room, guys.”

Nobody seems too disappointed, at least. Either way, Negan follows their shadows back to the living room. He’s just about to sit back down on the couch and resume his nap when Eugene speaks in a whispered voice.

“You’re gonna want to see this.” He says as he waves Rick over. Negan, ever curious, follows the smaller man. They peer over Eugene’s shoulder at the one screen he’s pointing to, and Negan’s blood runs cold.

In the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom, the camera has been upturned and the view now runs sideways from the floor. Standing just a few feet from the grounded equipment is a pair of grayish, masculine legs. The body paces further from the camera and Negan can now see the full figure of a stocky, middle-aged man with a mostly bald head, a bottle of tequila in hand, an a very angry stare. He roars something into the camera that can’t be heard, and the volatility in his expression sends both Negan and Rick reeling backward.

“What the _shit_!?” Negan snaps his head toward Rick, who looks just as alarmed as he does. They both take off toward the hallway, Eugene and the sisters following suit. When they get there, there’s no one. The camera is lying on the ground, and the only sign that the man was ever there is the stench of alcohol that almost makes Negan wonder if his ghostly inhabitant is actually not a fucking ghost at all. He rules it out when he thinks about the incident in the bathroom, but still, the fact that he can _smell_ the tequila that had been in the figure’s hand is kind of alarming.

Rick is looking at the girls, so Negan does so too. Beth and Maggie are creeping up the hall at a snail’s pace, and they look…different, somehow. Beth has her hand on Maggie’s shoulder, and both of Maggie’s arms are limp at her sides as she walks.

“She sees somethin’.” Rick explains, voice just audible enough for Negan to hear him. “Beth will tell us what it is soon enough.”

Going into this, Negan honestly didn’t know what to expect. But now that they’re in the heat of the moment, he’s freaked the fuck out. Looking back on everything that he’d seen happen in the shows on television, all the real-time stuff never happened on the first visit. But this is definitely happening, and Negan suddenly doesn’t like his house as much as he did before. He also doesn’t feel quite as compelled to fight to keep the place now that he’s seen what the ghost’s face looks like.

Beth and Maggie stop walking, and Rick raises a hand up to silence Negan from saying anything. Not that Negan had anything planned because his mouth is puckered up like a fear-stricken asshole right now. But he gets it.

“He looks angry.” Beth whispers, her voice almost monotonous, like she’s hypnotized. “But Maggie sees only sadness and guilt. The fury is like a mask. He’s lonely. Doesn’t know how to handle it, though, so he takes it out on them.”

“…Them?” Negan swallows a lump of anxiety down from his throat. He doesn’t know who ‘them’ is, but the implications make him incredibly nervous.

“He wants them back.” Beth continues. “But he can’t have them back. He’s doomed to repeat the moment he died forever.”

And then all the weight in the hallway disappears and Maggie gasps for breath, as if she’s resurfacing from beneath a body of water. Immediately, she wheels around and faces Rick.

“We don’t need any more proof, Rick.” She says, her tone serious. “We gotta cleanse this place.”

Negan frowns.

Rick turns an apologetic glance his way. “It’s not time-consuming, but you’ll understandably want a break from this place. I’ll help you pay for a hotel room.”

Negan clears his throat. “You don’t have to do that, Rick. I’m a big boy—I’ll stay here.”

Rick doesn’t look convinced that that’s a good idea. He gnaws thoughtfully at his lower lip. “…Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, I’m positive.” Negan responds. “Let’s just do this cleansing thing and see how it goes from there.”

**\--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---**

The supposed cleansing is actually what Rick refers to as ‘smudging’, which they won’t be able to do until tomorrow, when they can get into touch with the one who does it—a Native American woman who knows how to perform the smudging in the most respectful and accurate way. As a result, Negan gets to stay in his uncleansed home for one more night, and because of his insistence upon staying there, Rick decides to join him.

“What about your kids?” Negan tries to protest.

“I was plannin’ on bein’ here all night, anyway, so they have a sitter.” Rick merely answers. “And I don’t know what’s gonna happen, so I’d feel better if I was here to help you.”

Negan would be a damn idiot to refuse that kind of warm offer, so he doesn’t decline at that point. Everyone else packs their things up and decides to head out, and once it’s just the two of them, Rick pulls out his own computer. Negan watches him type in the address to his home on some library website, but nothing he finds seems satisfactory to him.

Negan concocts strawberry smoothies for the both of them, and as he takes a seat next to Rick, he clears his throat. “I take it you’re looking up the history of this place.”

“Yeah.” Rick muses as he scrolls freely. “I’ve got a hunch, but I don’t want to jump the gun.”

“What’s your hunch?” Negan questions as Rick accepts the smoothie with a nodded ‘thank you’.

“It’s from a case about four years ago.” Rick says. “I thought your address was kind of familiar, but I go to a lot of places, so I didn’t dwell too much on it. There was a guy, I think he was here—Ed was his name. He was beatin’ his wife and child. Neighbor called the cops on him, and my partner, Shane, and I came to investigate. We’d seen a lot of domestic abuse cases—more than either of us wanted to admit—but this one was bad.”

While Rick speaks, Negan recalls what he’d seen on that laptop screen—the man he’d never seen before walking that hall, the look of fury on his face, the blackness in his eyes as he’d stared straight ahead and screamed. The fact that Negan hadn’t been able to hear the noise unnerves him more than anything else, and now that Rick’s putting a possible background to him, it’s even scarier.

Rick continues, probably unaware of Negan’s train of thought. “When we came in, he had cornered his wife—a close friend of Shane and I—in the bathroom. He’d already laid hands on her. Her lip was bleeding. This set Shane off. He was probably a little aggressive in trying to arrest Ed, but the guy was also fightin’ him. I got his wife out of the way while the altercation happened. I got her out of the room and called for backup, and then there was a gunshot.”

…Holy hell. Negan swallows nervously. If this really did happen, shit got really heavy in this house, huh?

“Guess Ed tried to get his hands on a pair of scissors and stab Shane, so he shot him in self-defense.” Rick says. “He came out of the bathroom with blood on his face and chest, and when I asked him what happened, he just grabbed his walkie and radioed for an ambulance.” He bites his lip, hard. “I’m still good friends with his wife. Her name’s Carol. I had to perform CPR on the man who had been hitting her and her daughter.”

“…Jesus fuck.” Negan whispers. “That’s some shit, Rick.”

Rick shrugs. “He was pronounced dead on the scene. Carol couldn’t bear to be in that house anymore, so she sold it and she and her daughter moved out.” He uses the laptop to connect to a database Negan doesn’t recognize, pulling up an article of the very scene he’d just described. “If this is the place, which I’m really startin’ to think it is, Ed’s probably relivin’ all the stuff that happened. The shower curtain thing you told me about…when I found him, he’d fallen and gotten tangled up in the curtain. And the dishes could be from a dispute he and Carol had in the past.”

Negan takes a moment to process the words Rick just finished speaking. He feels nervous—anxious and uncertain. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to follow this Carol’s lead and sell the house, himself. Would it really be that much of a loss? Moving into a new place is always exciting too, right?

Except now, Negan’s probably going to think every place he lives in is haunted. He suddenly feels compelled to take Rick up on his offer to help with a hotel.

“…How’s Carol doing?” Negan asks.

Rick smiles, shaking his head. “She’s great. You’d be surprised how resilient that woman is. She was a little beat up about it for a while, but once she realized she didn’t have to be afraid anymore, she started to get better. She’s part of the family now, so she’s got all the support she could ask for.” His eyes meet Negan’s. “You’d like her.”

As the hours drag on, neither Negan nor Rick can sleep after what happened and the story Rick unfolded. The article proves the accuracy of Rick’s memory, and even though the smaller man tells Negan Ed is likely repeating things that had happened during his life and in the moment of his death, Negan doesn’t feel compelled to stay here any longer. Eventually, he pulls out his own laptop and starts looking into houses in the area.

And Rick, being ever the good person Negan is quickly learning that he is, looks up the history of every house Negan shows interest in just for reassurance. By morning, he has a few that he’s interested in, and he makes haste in packing up. Rick seems a little surprised by his urgency to escape, but makes no attempt to stop him. However, about halfway through their little packing tryst, Rick does speak up.

They’re wrapping glass items up in grocery sacks and loading them into boxes when Rick brings up the question.

“What about the smudging?” He asks, as he closes up yet another box. Lucky for them, Negan still has plenty of boxes broken down in his garage from his move here.

By now, Negan’s exhausted. He’s in the horrid state where he’s so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, but the minute he thinks about sleep, he wonders what might happen while he’s out. He also doesn’t want Rick to leave, and now that sunlight is streaming through most of the windows in the house, he’s afraid the man is going to do just that.

“I don’t give a shit about that anymore.” Negan grumbles, the sleep evident in his voice. “I mean, maybe it should be done anyway to help whatever poor fucker moves in here next, but I honestly want out. It’d be fucked up to want to live in a house with a story like the one you told me last night.”

Rick bites his lip. “Negan…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Negan shakes his head. “No, I’m glad you told me. I’d have been more angry if you’d kept that shit from me and I found out later. Not gonna lie, if you hadn’t done it for me last night, I was gonna try and find out what happened myself today. Glad you cut out the middle man for me.”

He sees the way Rick looks down at the ground, and a pitiful sigh escapes him.

“I can still help you with a hotel if you don’t want to stay here while you try and sell the house.” Rick tries.

“I’ll probably get one.” Negan admits. “But I don’t fucking expect you to pay for it.” A frown on his face is meant to tell Rick that he shouldn’t feel obligated to do something like that. “You’ve actually been a big help to me already—helping me figure out what kind of asshole’s in my house, and giving a picture to the invisible guy lurking around. And maybe I’m being forward as fuck here, but I really like having you around.”

Rick looks up at Negan, and a smile works its way back onto his lips. “I like being around.”

Negan notices just how tired Rick looks, too. He may be used to pulling long nights like this one, but that doesn’t mean he’s impervious to exhaustion. And the guy’s a single parent. How in the fuck does he do that?

“I’ll have you around as much as you want to bring your pretty ass around, Rick.” Negan replies. “But right now, you look a damn mess. You should go home and get some sleep before you fucking collapse on me.”

“…Let me help you pack, first.” Rick tries, but Negan silences him with a shake of the head.

“If I’m being honest, my ass is about to pass out too. I’ll probably get a hotel and crash the minute you leave.”

“Then let me give you a ride.” Rick persists. “I know a place not far from here that has real soft mattresses and amazing room service for a decent price.”

Negan laughs. “Why’re you being so stubborn about this?”

“Well,” Rick answers, “I feel bad for not bein’ able to do much else for you. And…maybe this is just my half-asleep way of tryin’ to tell you that I _was_ flirtin’ with you last night. And I _might_ be interested in seein’ where this thing is gonna go.”

“You serious right now?” Negan questions, laughing harder now. He’s not sure if his sleep-addled mind is picking up things Rick’s not actually saying or if this is real. “This is moving…really fucking fast.”

“Yeah, well.” Rick shrugs. “I’m startin’ to like you real fuckin’ fast.”

Negan thinks he’s going to vomit, but in the most pleasant way possible. Who would have thought that residing in a haunted house would have led up to him meeting someone like Rick Grimes? And honestly, Negan has absolutely no problem accepting the offer Rick’s laying out to him right now. It’s an open offer. Negan somehow knows that this doesn’t mean they’re dating. They’re just…testing out the waters. Seeing what happens. And maybe one day, he’ll get to meet Rick’s kids and help out with that garden.

But for now, he just smiles. “Alright. Okay then, Rick. Lead me to this bomb-ass hotel.”

**\--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---**

Immediately upon climbing into Rick’s car, Negan feels lighter. He doubts it’s entirely because of the presence in his home, but more the anxiety of what he’d learned over the course of the previous night. But now that he’s out of there, he feels infinitely better, and also infinitely more tired. He could fall asleep in Rick’s car. But he’s almost afraid to, because he knows this guy has to be just as exhausted as he is. In fact, will Rick be able to make it back to his home okay?

God, he looks tired. Negan feels his own demeanor soften at the very sight of Rick right now. Those blue eyes as pale and lively as ever, but with gray shadows beneath them, and hair slightly askew from many times running his fingers through it or scratching thoughtfully at it. He keeps shaking his head or worrying at his lip, clearly too tired to really be at the wheel, and before Negan can stop himself, he’s opening his mouth to speak.

“You’re gonna crash if you try to drive home like this.” Negan says plainly. “Why don’t you stay with me? You don’t have to sleep in the same fucking bed or anything like that. Just…get whatever rest you need to not fall asleep at the wheel, okay?”

“I’m fine, Negan.” Rick says around a laugh.

“…Rick. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“I’ve done this before.” Rick tries, but Negan isn’t buying it.

“Just a couple of hours.” He pleads.

“My kids are still at the sitter’s.”

“Just ask if they can stay a little longer so you don’t pass out going to pick them up.”

“Negan…”

“ _Please._ ”

When Rick turns to look at Negan after coming to a stop at an intersection, Negan knows he’s won. He seems to ponder the offer during the entire time the light is red, but when it switches to green, he shakes his head and lets out a sigh.

“Fine.” Rick concedes. “I’ll call up the sitter when we get to the hotel.”

“Thank you.” Negan crosses his arms victoriously.

The ride goes quiet for a while, which makes Negan kind of uncomfortable. He hopes Rick is going to be able to get them to the hotel at the very least. Hell, would they be better off turning around and heading back to his house instead?

Of course not. Neither of them want to be there. Probably not Rick, especially. Having to relive what sounds like one hell of a traumatizing moment in his police career. It’s a wonder he hadn’t wanted to leave the very instant he’d made the connection.

Because he’s apparently a genuinely caring human being who hadn’t wanted to leave Negan all alone.

Jesus Christ, Negan doesn’t deserve him. He’s known him for a day and he already realizes this.

“…Rick?”

As Rick pulls into the area right in front of the hotel entrance, he turns his head to regard Negan, silently prompting him to go ahead.

“You said before you’d had a paranormal experience of your own. What happened?”

Rick shrugs. “The police station has been around for a long time. People have died there. You hear stories all the time about unexplained noises in empty cells and people goin’ crazy for seemingly no reason when alone in certain bunks.” He climbs out of the vehicle and he and Negan make their way inside the hotel. “For me, it was one of the first few overnights I worked. I was makin’ rounds and stopped at the pool. Ended up shoved in the water, and I was the only one in there. I’ve heard footsteps before. Nothin’ too crazy. Just enough to make me curious to learn more.”

Negan scoffs. “You’re telling me getting pushed into fucking a pool by some invisible force isn’t crazy to you? You’re something else, Rick.”

The two focus on booking a room, and then while Negan travels to their room by foot, Rick parks the car and meets him there. They step into an air-conditioned room with a queen bed, a nice balcony view, and a flat-screen TV for their enjoyment.

Not that they use it. Both men are so tired that they take turns showering and then head straight to bed. When Negan emerges, Rick is fast asleep on the little couch included in the room. ‘ _Trying to be a fucking gentleman, I suppose.’_

He doesn’t have it in him to wake him up, though. Honestly, Negan wouldn’t mind Rick’s company in the single bed in the room, but Rick might actually find that kind of awkward. On top of that, the guy hasn’t slept in a day. Negan doesn’t want to wake him up and risk him having difficulty falling back asleep. So much to his own personal distaste, he occupies the bed himself and passes right the fuck out.

He sleeps so well that it almost doesn’t even feel like sleep to him. One minute, he’s lying in that bed, and the next minute, he’s wide awake, feeling fully rested, and less fearful than he has been in three days. He almost feels like a new person entirely.

Rick’s seated on the edge of the bed, working his shoes on. His hair looks as neat as it did yesterday when he and the rest of his team had greeted Negan at the doorstep. He’s got the same clothes on, but he looks (and smells) as clean as ever.

Negan likes that smell.

“Sleep well?” Rick asks before Negan can say anything. He turns his head to look at the other man, and those blue eyes melt Negan’s heart all over again.

“Sure did. Kind of bummed that you crashed on the couch, though.”

“Didn’t want to make you feel like you had to sleep on it.” Rick says simply. “Besides, it was pretty comfortable. I slept just fine.”

“Fine.” Negan laughs. “Fucking be that way.”

Negan opts to keep the hotel room for a while, and he and Rick make plans to continue packing up his house in the morning. It’s early evening by now, though, so Rick has got to get home to his kids. Negan can understand that. Rick promises to be by early in the morning, and Negan doesn’t imagine he’s going anywhere else tonight, so he doesn’t bother with planning on going to his house for his car.

So they say their goodnights right there in that hotel room. Like a gentleman, Negan walks Rick to the door, and as if they’ve been crushing on one another since fucking high school, they tiptoe awkwardly around their goodbyes.

“I’ll see you in the mornin’.” Rick finally says, clearing his throat.

“Looking forward to it, Blue Eyes.” Negan replies, wetting his lips with his tongue. He watches as Rick opens the door. “Oh, and Rick?”

Standing in that doorway, Rick pivots slowly around, meeting eyes with Negan once more. The curiosity on his face lights Negan up like a goddamn spook house. “…Yeah?”

Negan sweeps in, catching Rick’s chin with one bent finger and tipping his head up, and then steals the kiss he’s been aching to get ever since he saw the man at his front door. Just over a day in, and Negan’s already gotten to this point. It’s crazy, but it’s also exciting, and Negan can’t remember the last time his heart felt like it was going to beat out of its chest like this.

And Rick doesn’t seem to mind. Negan feels the tension of his sharp intake of breath, and the ever-so-brief hesitation that follows it, before his hands come up to Negan’s chest and he’s pushing him back into the room, against the nearest wall, and kissing the shit out of him.

It’s a weird mix between gentle and hungry. A sweet push and pull, and an insatiable tangle of lips and tongues and bodies pressed together. They spend a few moments just wrapped up in one another like that, until they’re both panting and desperate to come up for air. When Rick steps back and frees Negan from against the wall, their faces are both flushed, and their eyes wide and locked on one another.

Negan laughs, a dense, husky laugh. “You should go before I draw another fucking two hours out of you. Make you tired enough to fall asleep all over again.”

Rick just smiles. “Maybe another day. But right now…”

“Yeah.” Negan nods. “Your kids. I understand.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Y’know, when I’m on my way.”

“Got it.” Negan answers.

When Rick actually does leave, Negan’s left standing there, dumbfounded. He’s actually looking forward to getting back to his house tomorrow, now. They’ve got a lot of work to do, and not just on the house.

Negan still hates ghosts, though.


End file.
